Since 2000 and until CM 11, Caixa Mágica had developed the installer / configurator (lucas/licas/xLucas/xLicas) from scratch and shared the base with SuSE.

The Caixa Mágica versions 12, 14 and 15 shared the Mandriva framework (Installer and Configurator and core RPMs). It was not entirely the same code since we were committed to core technologies that were not in Mandriva roadmap like Apt,.... Read the LetterToTheCommunity about the moving to Mandriva (portuguese).

From Caixa Mágica 16 onwards we decided to move to a Debian core distribution, using mainly Ubuntu as the package base. You can read the announcement ​here

Although there are several payed developers in the development process, Caixa Mágica has always been open to contributions.

How to contribute

Bug reporting

Anytime something in your Caixa Mágica usage either doesn't work as expected or doesn't work at all please fill up a bug report here;

Testing development versions

When a new version of Caixa Mágica is being developed, testing versions (usually called Alpha or Beta versions) are release for public testing. You can help by testing those versions and filling bug reports here;

Code contributions

Senior developers can commit directly to the SVN, others should submit a patch using address "software AT caixamagica DOT pt". See here how you can download a package source code and create a patch for us to test.

Everyone can send DEB sources to the contributions repository. Just use our ​Contribware website to do so in a very easy way.